Various semiconductor manufacturing tools are used in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Such tools include wafer steppers, lithographic equipment, etchers, ion implanters and other machines. A host computer can be interfaced with such a tool to provide commands to, or request and retrieve data from the tool. Various protocols, such as the SEMI Equipment Communications Standard protocol, have been developed to enable host/tool communication.
Host computers can be part of a communications network that is connected to a semiconductor manufacturing tool. As such, more than one host computer may wish to communicate with the tool. However, more than one host computer sending data request messages and other commands to the semiconductor manufacturing tool can result in conflicting messages that the tool may be unable to resolve. Furthermore, multiple host computers requesting data from the semiconductor manufacturing tool can also burden the processing and communications resources of the tool.